Excerpt from Life, and Death, and Giants by Ron Rindo, plus links to reviews, author biography & more

Even as a young girl, Rachel drew the gaze of boys and men. A mother sees such things, the subtle shift in their hungry eyes. Their hands remain busy at their work, but their eyes—those of Godly men, too—wander. Her brown hair curled in soft ringlets when a baby and by age twelve cascaded down her back. Such beauty. Even in a plain blue dress to the ankles, with her hair tucked under her kapp, Rachel radiated loveliness. Her eyes, the gentle curve of her jawline, the pink fruit of her lips, these could not be concealed. Every time I looked upon her, my heart swelled with a terrible pride.

It was not until much later that I realized the gravity of my mistake. God had not sent my beautiful daughter so easily into this world to give my life greater joy. He sent her to test my love for Him, to give me new opportunity to resist the pleasures of this world. It is when we are at the heights of earthly delight—sensual pleasure, pride, vanity—that we find ourselves furthest from heaven.

* * *

I grew up with three older brothers, Thomas, Abel, and John, and one sister, Margaret, whom we called Meg. Three years older than me, Meg was far more beautiful. Everywhere I grew plain, my thin lips, my boyish body, she swelled and bloomed. My wispy hair, dry as the browned silks of ripened field corn, fell barely past my shoulders and could be hidden easily beneath my kapp. Meg's hair grew in thick, golden curls, like ropes, and by the time she reached the age of twelve, it would take Mother a long time to secure the bulk of it beneath Meg's kapp, and even then, it radiated beyond the edges like the rays in a child's drawing of the sun.

When Meg turned thirteen, an English boy made her the gift of a large, ivory-colored comb, and at night she would comb her hair over and over, running her fingers through it proudly. One spring afternoon, the worst of my childhood, Meg began combing her hair while Mother read to us after lunch from the Bible. We were kneeling on the floor near the hearth of the woodstove, and Mother and Father sat in chairs on either side. I still remember the words that stopped inside Mother's mouth: "Beareth all things, believeth all things, hopeth all things, endureth all things," when Father leaped from his chair and lifted Meg by the head, his strong right hand wrapped in her hair. Meg dropped her comb and screamed, kicking her legs and clutching at her head with both hands as Father dragged her toward the door.

Father had cautioned Meg many times against her vanity. It is one of Satan's most devious tricks, how easily he can plant it in our hearts with just a glance at our reflection in a window. Once Meg had gotten lipstick from an English girl and colored her lips in secret. She'd removed it but missed a speck. When Father noticed, he grabbed her chin and rubbed her lip clean, roughly, with his thumb, causing her mouth to bleed. Another time Meg had arranged her hair on top of her head, with pins and such, like a glamorous English movie star. Fortunately, that time Mother had corrected her. But to reach for her comb during Bible reading! Father could not abide it.

This was late April, shearing season. Father pulled Meg, barefoot, out the kitchen door and across the gravel driveway into the barn, where the shearing stanchion remained inside one of the large, empty horse stalls. The ewes rumbled in their lambing jugs as they heard Father enter, thinking they might be getting a treat, but soon went silent. Her feet cut and bleeding, Meg knelt in the straw and pleaded with Father to forgive her, promised to melt the comb in a fire. Father dragged Meg to the stanchion and ordered her to lie across it, her beautiful hair hanging like willow branches over her face. With quivering hands, and loud, angry breaths, Father yanked the hand shear from where it hung on a nail driven into the wall. He oiled the steel blades until they dripped. Meg sobbed but remained still. The rest of us watched in horror, heads bowed. Father pushed down on one of Meg's shoulders, and then the other, as he sheared the long hair from her head. It fell in tangled ropes into the straw below, mixing with snippets of wool and pellets of manure.

Excerpted from Life, and Death, and Giants by Ron Rindo. Copyright © 2025 by Ron Rindo. Excerpted by permission of St. Martin's Press. All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.